her foolish, foolish girl
by bobbingformangos
Summary: "How did I get into your arms?" The blonde princess whispered against the heated flesh of the dark haired queen. Her finger tips teased the skin under the thin nightshift as she pressed her mouth kissed and kissed and kissed. It was nice to be reminded that she was loved. This was her favorite story to hear.


her foolish, foolish girl. (swan queen) (6weeksq)

**2/3**

**6 Week Swan Queen Challenge **

_Nature - AU _

_raw. unedited. same old, same old. _

* * *

Sometimes she forgets that she has parents. That there are two people who created her, like a burst of energy when the universe started, and nurtured her since the conception. She was loved when she was in the womb - caressed and sung to and her father would whisper stories against her mother's stretched belly when she was still inside and she would thump against the skin, hitting the spot where his cheek pressed.

She was sure that they loved her at some point.

But the drought came and the rain stopped and so did their love. She became an afterthought once she was on the outside, a tree that a child once loved but, over time, the child grows up and forgets about it's beloved tree and the shelter it provided and soon, once outside, she was forgotten also.

When she was born, her mother held her in her arms, smiled down at her with rose tinted cheeks and heavy breaths, and confessed to the heavens that she loved the tiny babe more than anything. Emma was a stream in her heart that would soon turn into a river and if she was a river inside her mother, than she was a raging ocean inside her father, and she was so loved and important.

And then the baby was taken from her mother's arms by a woman older than trees and dirt and promised that the tiny child would be taken care of and nursed and nurtured.

Her parents were royals.

Royals had no time for children or babes or thoughts outside their kingdoms. Emma wonders if her parents considered raising her with them, in war rooms and great halls, never letting her leave their sight.

But, later in life, she was told that they were weak. Very weak.

A child would have been too much for them, it would break them.

She was better off.

* * *

"How did I get into your arms?" The blonde princess whispered against the heated flesh of the dark haired woman. Her finger tips teased the skin under the thin nightshift as she pressed her mouth kissed and kissed and kissed.

It was nice to be reminded that she was loved.

* * *

She grew up with nurses and handmaids and away from a castle that housed a queen and a king. For they were never her parents, not since she was curled inside her mother's belly. They came to see her on her naming day and then on her birthday and once when she was four and got a great illness and was confined to her chambers for two turns of the moon but she never really saw them, knew them.

Instead the rosy cheeked blonde who wore pale blue smocks ran free around her own estate made from stone and vines and colorful flowers that bloomed all year round thanks to the women who cared for the little girl. Guards stood around strong walls around the estate while women in blue and purple dresses and smocks worked diligently around the estate to ensure that the princess grew up with laughter and memories and knowledge.

And it seemed so happy, so very happy, but the toddler grew to a little girl and then into a young woman who lacked and lacked something that was very important to nurture the energy that created stars and heavens and galaxies.

Love should be abundant to a child who was made for it, who needed it to thrive, but it slowly slipped from her fist and soon enough, by her eighteenth summer, the young woman slipped past towering walls and guards in search of a love that would sustain her.

"You're a foolish girl," was the first thing that was whispered to her in the pinks of the morning. It was the husk in the woman's voice that had the princess frightened and quickly turning with a palm out in defense.

Emma didn't know she had magic then, but instincts are instincts and it would serve her well.

Except she saw that dark woman haloed by morning lights with stars at her feet and it took away Emma's breath. Light blue frocks were now a light blue dress with flowers embroidered at the bottom, so that as she walked, maybe flowers would start to grow in her steps.

"And why would you say that I was foolish?" Emma replied, lowering her hand but not stepping any farther back. She was intrigued by this woman dressed so beautifully in black riding leathers and her long, dark hair falling out of it's perfect braid to lick at her olive toned face.

"To go beyond your walls," the woman replied thickly, stepping closer and raising a hand to touch Emma's outstretched hand. She scrunched her nose at the princess, a smirk playing on her lips, "Didn't you know that guarded walls are there to protect you?"

"Or keep me caged in," Emma quickly replied causing the dark haired woman to cock an eyebrow. This little thing was foolish, yes, but very, very intriguing.

And so, moving in closer, she whispered to the blonde, "Would you like to see the world, foolish girl?"

And Emma nodded her curly head, eager and curious and slightly scared, replying, "Yes, yes I would."

* * *

She showed her every kingdom but her own. Word got out of a missing princess but even a year later, she was not found.

The south was left for last and it happened to be her favorite. There were orchards and gardens and crops and fields and fields of flowers. Beautiful, bright flowers. Tiny pixies danced around the petals and wolves roamed the beautiful forest and right there by the sea stood a large black castle that looked completely out of place in a kingdom so bright and beautiful.

And suddenly Regina was more than a woman who could be ominous and playful and powerful. She was a Queen, the queen of stories that used to keep Emma up at night, and for some peculiar reason, Emma's heart only thumped more wildly at this information.

It was drawn across the petals in the fields and written in the foam of the sea and spelled so perfectly by the clouds - their love.

It came on fast like hurricanes or tsunamis and it overwhelmed both the princess and queen.

They accept their love the moment their lips touched and they embraced it the moment their bodies slide together in heated passion.

The queen loved fiercely and dug her nails into Emma's milky skin. She nibbled at freckles and let her magic slide across Emma before it was inhaled deep into the blonde's lungs.

And Emma loved as if she was unable to quench her thirst. She loved with the power of heavens and stars and it was then that her magic was revealed.

She was made from true love and it would only be befitting that her and her queen made another the same way.

* * *

While her parents sent her away as a tiny thing, barely wiped clean of her mother's insides, they held him close. He slept against their hearts and was fed from her breast and for months and months no one but them laid a hand on him. He grew surrounded by love from a princess who only just learned and a queen who's heart was wrapped in darkness.

They named him Henry and he was a fine, little prince with gummy smiles and bright brown eyes and a tuff of hair as brown as the trunks of the trees in the forest.

And as he rested on Regina's chest during the night, Emma rested with her head above her lungs, and Regina held them close, close, close, so fucking close.

Her nails digging more and more.

"I'll never let you go," The queen whispered into their ears for she was a woman who grew without love and knew what it felt like to have it ripped away and she vowed to never let it happen again.

It couldn't happen again.

* * *

Henry grew into a toddling infant who craved fields of flowers and pixies kissing his nose and mothers who indulged in with laughter and arms that would carry him throughout his days.

And as Henry grew, so did the love of the princess and the queen. Fevered kisses stolen in great halls and the inability to keep fingertips from skin was whispered fondly around the kingdom and it wasn't until the birth of their daughter that word got out that the missing princess was soon to become the queen of the dark, southern kingdom.

Her name was Iris and on her naming day the Northern Kingdom tried to break down the stone barriers of the Southern Kingdom only to fail. Some say that tiny irises appeared on the walls and barriers surrounding the kingdom and separating the White Queen from the Dark Queen in protest to keep darkness away from the new family.

But those could simply be stories, stories neither women concerned themselves with when they held a prince and princess firmly in their arms.

"Forever, my Queen," Emma whispered into Regina's hair before the pinks of morning started to fill their chambers. A tiny little girl with blonde curls curled between them and a little boy spread across their legs and they were just a small family, tied close together, instead of royals in these moments.

Regina would move, ever so slightly, in Emma's direction, causing the blonde to kiss and kiss and kiss her head and then her face until her dark eyes would flutter open and her nose would crinkle and she would lift long fingers to stroke Emma's face. Raspy voice still laced with sleep, Regina replied, "For always, my foolish girl."

* * *

It was the letter from her mother delivered by a blue jay that sparked the inevitable curiosity within the young princess (who has yet to take kindly to the title of Queen). The bird came during the afternoon while Emma, her maids and close friends, and children enjoyed the fields outside one of the villages. Regina was atop her thrown in the great hall and Emma wanted the children to enjoy the spring air as she did from time to time.

So, there they lay, on a quilt gifted to the royal family by an old woman who lived in a cottage near one of Henry's favorite fields to visit. Maids and friends roamed around, picking lavender flowers and irises, while Emma sat back, holding herself up on her elbows, as Henry napped across her legs and Iris slept peacefully against her side, and life was simply beautiful.

She was neither caged nor unloved and Emma was so, so happy.

But a letter came written in beautiful ink and whimsical writing and confessions of sorrow and regret and a mother's love woven between words like air between the leaves was on the parchment. Her mother's confessions slipped between her parted lips and found their way into her heart and the small amount of magic that Emma knew seeped out into the sky and caused the clouds to grow heavy.

It rained on the small family and it rained all the way until they stepped into the dark castle and finally, it stormed.

* * *

It didn't stop storming and lightening came when Emma asked to take the children to meet their grandparents.

It was the first night that the children slept in the room next to their chambers, small but fit for a prince and princess and close to their mother's hearts.

It was that night that their love became animalistic and dark and as dangerous as the woman who ruled over the kingdom.

Regina dug her nails deeper, drawing rose colored blood from Emma's back, whispering over and over, "I can't let you go."

* * *

He was born under a new moon with white blonde hair. Regina's hair stuck to her forehead and her lips were parted as she tried to catch her breath. Her arms were shaky when she held him against her breath, so Emma moved her body to sit behind the Queen and wrap her arms around to help hold the small child.

"I love you, my foolish girl," Regina whispered as her eyes closed and her head lulled back in exhaustion against Emma. And Emma held tighter, kissing Regina's shoulder, feeling for the first time in a year, like she could breathe.

* * *

"Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch," Emma sung softly over and over, the hum in her chest lulling the small infant attached by a woven cloth on her back to sleep. The children running in front of her, giggling, catching the song and mimicking. She continues as the sun slowly starts it's decent from the middle of the sky, voice soft and sad and regretful. The laughter coming from the two young children settle oddly in her stomach, knowing that they aren't as full as they once was, and Emma wonders if she should have ever left at all.

But the nails dug and dug and drew blood and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe and, slowly, her children couldn't breathe and Emma knew that if the dark queen could see, she wouldn't want this for any of them.

It was all too easy for the blonde to slip out of the queen's grasp and gather her children in the middle of the night. The princess wonders if it was her magic that made it so easy and kept the children so quiet as she dressed them and tied the small infant to her back and slipped past guards and walls.

Like before, she slid away without notice.

And now she was making her way to parents who held regret and sorrow and love for her.

All the while slowly learning how to breathe again.

Their travels started months ago. It was slow, traveling with tiny little things, but she was nearly there, to a castle of white stone that shined brightly in the afternoon sun. Henry was first to point it out. The five year old's chubby finger extended to the castle as his song stopped and he turned around with a bright smile, front tooth missing, "Ma, there it is! There is the castle!" Because he believed in adventure and of travel and of things told over and over in stories, the young boy was excited.

Iris was too, following closely after her brother and of picking new flowers but she was empathetic to her mother's sadness and worry and felt how much Emma's heart longed for her mother. So her laughter wasn't as bright and her smiles didn't reach her eyes and often, she would slow her steps and go to clutch at Emma's hand.

As they made it to the gates, the tiny boy with white blonde hair wakes and gasps for breaths. He still goes without a name, even months after his birth and since she left the castle. It was sunny and summer hot despite it being the harvest months, and as guards welcomed them in with shouts of glee and announcement of their arrival, Emma longs more and more for a woman who held too tightly.

A princess couldn't save someone from her demons, no one could, and apparently there was a limit to the love Emma possessed. She was naive but as her children grew and Regina's nails dug, she started to understand that even she couldn't breathe.

She was a foolish girl, after all, wasn't she?

* * *

It came full circle for Emma. She ran from her parents to find love and now, she was running from the one person who provided her with the love she needed to her parents. She was dressed in pale blue dresses and her daughter in lavender and her sons in purple and one still went without a name because it didn't feel right to name a tiny boy without his mother and as the days grew shorter, Emma longed and longed and longed for her queen.

A queen who was nestled in her castle, wrapped tightly in blankets that smelt like her family, hand reaching out and grasping.


End file.
